Schatz urges House to act on domestic spying issue

HONOLULU — State Rep. Brian Schatz, D-Tantalus, Makiki, McCully, sent a letter to the leadership of the state House of Representatives last week to issue subpoenas to Hawaiian telecommunications companies, saying it’s only way to get to the bottom of domestic spying, a press release from Schatz’s office states.

“I know that this is an extraordinary request, but unfortunately our national administration, our Congress, and our attorney general are not taking action to protect Hawai‘i’s citizens’ privacy rights, so we must,” Schatz wrote in a letter addressed to Speaker of the House Calvin Say and majority leader Marcus Oshiro, both O‘ahu Democrats.

“I believe that his issue has risen to the level of a constitutional crisis, and that the Bush administration is willfully violating federal law and Hawai‘i’s Constitution,” Schatz said in the letter. “I respectfully request that the House leadership seriously consider taking this immediate and drastic action.”

The letter came a day after the House committees on Judiciary Affairs and Commerce and Consumer Protection — of which Schatz is vice chair — held a briefing with Attorney General Mark Bennett on the possibility of the National Security Agency obtaining phone records from Hawaiian telecommunications companies.

In that meeting, Schatz said Bennett made it clear the attorney general’s office would not subpoena phone companies to see if the NSA had obtained the records.

New Jersey’s attorney general is the only one in the nation to make such a move, though Schatz said in his letter that Bennett told the committees the federal government could defeat the subpoena based on the U.S. Constitution’s Supremacy Clause.

Bennett did say the House leadership could issue a direct subpoena, which would not require the support of the entire body.

Though some legislators acknowledged that as a possibility, most said it would probably not happen until the next regular session in January.